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"India has made tremendous progress in the field of information technology in the last few years and I am very optimistic about the future. But we have to accelerate the reach of the personal computer to see that it percolates down to the lowest level," said Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corporation, at the CII-CEOs Forum, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and Microsoft in New Delhi on Wednesday.
In his only industry interaction in India on this visit, Bill Gates, in his address titled 'Realising India's potential,' lauded India's progress, particularly in human resources. He stated that today India was the country producing the largest number of engineers and IT specialists in the world while ironically, the number of students opting for these subjects was going down in the US.
Gates informed that Microsoft has decided to develop India as one of the centers for producing low-cost computers."
On his fourth visit to India, the man labeled 'the richest man in the world' noted that the progress made by India in the last few years in the economic field, deregulation and information technology had been remarkable.
"It gives us confidence that India is going in a positive direction," he stated.
At the same time he wanted India to particularly focus on four areas, literacy, productivity, digital inclusion and innovation in the coming years.
He was quite happy that as far as literacy was concerned as the IITs were doing a good job but the challenge was to spread the knowledge to the whole country and provide better technology."
Achieving literacy is not an idealistic vision but is a must in order to ensure that the benefits of the latest technology are available to the majority of the people," he stated.
In productivity, he said that the expectations were more than ever before but India is simply the leader in services and the learning curve is going up. He wanted the government and the private sector to join hands in this venture.
In the field of innovation, Gates noted that the last one-year had been very critical and tremendous progress had been made, helped by the flow of knowledge between India and the US.
Sam Pitroda, Chairman, Knowledge Commission, India and Co-Chair, CII-India American Council, said that the government had taken various steps that were critical to the growth of the country and to see that the benefits of technology reached to the lowest strata of society.
In particular, he mentioned the introduction of the Right to Information Act, which was a landmark decision as it gave the public the right to get information from the government officers. The government had also introduced the Bharat Nirman project, Rural Employment Mission and encouraged e-governance in various states of the country, he noted.
In his vote of thanks Rahul Bajaj, chairman and managing director, Bajaj Auto and Past President CII said that bridging the social and economic differences between the rich and the poor in India was more important than reducing the digital divide.